The People's Railroad
Citizens of Aberdeen pledge labor to build a rail line, betting their own time against town lots to secure Northern Pacific's investment.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A railroad meeting was held in the school house on Wishkah street Saturday evening. It was proposed that the community secure the necessary labor to build a rail spur and offer this labor to the Northern Pacific Railroad for their acceptance or rejection. Those who subscribed their labor are to be repaid by town lots. At the meeting, forty-six men initially subscribed twenty-six days of labor each. By Monday evening, the number of men subscribing reached an even hundred, and 150,000 feet of lumber was also pledged. A. C. Little and Samuel Benn are heading to Tacoma to present this offer to the railroad's assistant engineer.
“Those who subscribed their labor are to be repaid by town lots.”
This grassroots 'sweat equity' scheme highlights how frontier towns were forced to finance their own infrastructure through speculative development, a common practice in the rapid expansion of Pacific Northwest timber cities.
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